


Fledge

by raisedbymoogles



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: AWOL, Alternate Universe - Anthro, Alternate Universe - Fixit, Gen, Journey, Self-Discovery, badassery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 11:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3408122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raisedbymoogles/pseuds/raisedbymoogles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fixit with anthro-humans. On their way back from Nibelheim, Cloud and Sephiroth come to terms with themselves, with Zack and Tifa providing color commentary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fledge

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Are You Game? 2008, on Insanejournal.

"What does the paper say about us?" Pulling his hair back, Sephiroth leaned over Tifa's shoulder.

"Nothing," Tifa shrugged, turning the page. "It's weird. You used to be in every issue."

"How flattering," Sephiroth said dryly, and moved on, only to replaced by Zack.

"What about me?" the ex-Soldier demanded. "Does it say anything about me?"

Tifa rolled her eyes, closed the paper and bopped him on the forehead with it. "If it doesn't say anything about the Great Sephiroth, it's not going to say anything about you." Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Sephiroth wincing over his coffee and wanted to apologize, but she'd learned quickly that when Sephiroth was hurt, the last thing he wanted was attention drawn to himself.

It had been two weeks since they'd left Nibelheim in the aftermath of Shinra's betrayal; two weeks since Tifa had left everything she'd thought she wanted to follow the man who'd tried to kill her. She'd been the one to push past Zack in the library that day, determined and frustrated and - she could admit it - stupid; it had been frightening when he lunged at her, surprising when Zack had checked his charge with more speed and power than she'd thought possible outside of Sephiroth himself; but the real shock had come when Zack opened his mouth and called, "Cloud!" and their nameless, silent trooper had come running.

_Cloud._ Tifa shook her head and closed the paper, getting up to stare pensively out the window of their barely-furnished hotel room. The city of Cosmo Canyon was a bright spot among the red ridges of stone across her view; above, the sky was turning dusky purple as the sun sank from view. "I should have gone with him," she murmured, her gloved hands flexing restlessly. "There's monsters out there."

"He'll be fine," Sephiroth said, clearly trying to be reassuring. "He's sixteen."

"He's only a year older than me," Tifa huffed.

Sephiroth threw a helpless look at Zack; the black-haired man shook his head, laughing. "Don't look at me, boss, I don't argue with girls." Sephiroth's frustrated, silent plea didn't waver, though, so Zack tried his luck with Tifa anyway. "Look, I know you can kick ass when you need to. I felt it, remember?" Tifa grinned at the memory, even if it was tainted with the memories of what came in the days after that sparring session. "But Cloud's been in the army for two years. He's learned how to deal with anything the world can throw him. He'll be okay, I promise."

"Holding you to that," Tifa shot back - a little stung, to be honest, not wanting to be the civilian they had to protect anymore. "If there's a scratch on him when he comes back, I'll kick your ass."

Zack grinned over at Sephiroth. "Good thing you gave him that Restore, huh, boss?" Sephiroth tossed his hair back and looked away, pretending to ignore them both. Tifa was about to push further when the door rattled. She coiled, infected with the Soldiers' caution by now, but she only realized that neither of them had tensed when the door opened to admit Cloud and a canvas sack at least as heavy as he was.

"I brought supplies," Cloud announced unnecessarily as Tifa scampered to help him carry it in. "I mean, um, nonperishable food items and other provisions, sir. And shampoo," he added, and immediately blushed as if he hadn't meant to say that out loud. "Um, since the hotel soap gives you tangles." His eyes slid to Sephiroth's, oddly hopeful, and Tifa paused in unpacking the groceries just to watch him with a bottle of shampoo forgotten in her hand.

It'd only been two years since she'd seen him last, and all right, she'd grown up too, but sometimes she swore Cloud was a completely different _person._

"We can't take all of this with us," Sephiroth said quietly, and his gaze when it met Cloud's was apologetic. "We have to pack as light as possible."

Cloud visibly paled. "Sir! I'm sorry, sir, I wasn't thinking." He scooped up the half-empty sack. "I think I can return some of it and get the gil back-"

"Hey, whoa," Zack protested, plucking the bag from his arms like it weighed nothing at all. "We'll take what we can and leave the rest for the cleaning ladies. Lemme see... hey, tangerines!." He tossed a tangerine underhanded at Sephiroth, who caught it easily. "And what are these - granola bars? Serves us right for stopping so near Cosmo Canyon and its pack of health nuts."

"Says the one who lives on chips and beer," Cloud shot back, warming to the subject. "You won't shrivel up and die if you eat something healthy."

"Yes, _Dad,"_ Zack said, and Cloud reacted with supernatural speed to chase him around the table, shedding his jacket to let his wings free from his shirt torn open in the back, and that was another thing that surprised Tifa.

She'd known he was a chocobo, but she hadn't had any idea he was a gold.

*

It got easier for the anthros the closer you got to Midgar. In the city, nobody cared what you looked like or what parts you had, at least as far as getting work and sending your kids to school went. If there was a higher number of anthro girls in the brothels under the Plate, well, anybody who looked even slightly Wutaian got the same kind of treatment. In the end everybody was poured into the same boiling mass of pollution and overcrowdedness, even the most exotic individuals melting into a morass of humanity.

It was different on the central continent. There were still places where a woman could be run out of town if she bore her husband a child with a tail. The papers were full of stories like that, as if to highlight the uncivilized nature of those hick towns in the mountains without Mako reactors. Cloud didn't think the reactors made any difference, though - the one at Nibel Mountain had been there since he was small, and it hadn't made a blind bit of difference to how the townies treated him. Sometimes he felt guilty running away from home like he did, leaving his mother to face them alone, but he was a chocobo. Running was what he _did._

Besides, they let anthros into Soldier. They let a _moogle_ anthro into Soldier. Who could resist that?

There were a couple of other anthros in Cloud's unit, but they were both carnivores, and he didn't really get along with them. So Cloud's first friend in Midgar wound up being a hume, paradoxically enough, but considering that hume was Zack, he wasn't sure it counted. Zack was... exceptional. Hell, he'd stood up against Sephiroth - a Sephiroth who was really, honest-and-truly, trying to kill him - and lived to tell about it. Labels like "hume" or "anthro" didn't apply to Zack anymore.

And then there was Sephiroth, and despite the rumors that he hid a tail under that cloak, or funny ears under all that hair, Sephiroth was as hume as they came. Proud, brilliant, lofty, and... a little lonely. Cloud had never realized how lonely until Nibelheim.

"Sir?" he said, leaning forward so the two Soldiers in the front could see him, and speaking quietly so that Tifa, curled up against the opposite window, wouldn't wake up. "We've been driving for an hour. We should be near Gongaga now."

"Thank you, Cloud," Sephiroth said, and switched off the buggy's lights. By agreement, they would travel in total darkness and at half speed until they passed the town by a reasonable distance, relying on Sephiroth's advanced vision to see them through in the dark. Cloud sat back, trying not to glow at the General's calling him 'Cloud,' and peeked out the window, though he didn't expect to see anything. An unaugmented person's night vision was nothing next to a Soldier's, and Cloud's was worse than most.

What he did see was Zack, or rather Zack's reflection in the forward window in front of him, chin propped on his hand as he stared through the forward glass into the distance. He looked - _melancholic,_ and that was so unlike the man that Cloud actually peeped in startlement. "Zack?"

Zack jerked upright, blinked, and craned his head around the seat to offer an apologetic grin. "Hey, Spike. Doing okay back there?"

Cloud flushed, knowing he meant the motion sickness, though oddly enough he hadn't been motion sick since they'd left Nibelheim despite taking two trucks and a chocobo caravan. He wondered if having his wings free most of the time had anything to do with it. "Yeah. You? You looked kinda down."

"Just thinking about home," Zack shrugged, turning back around. "My parents probably got my death certificate by now."

Cloud pictured his own mother, opening a small brown envelope that had his name and a cause of death printed on it - likely signed by one of the section commanders, since the General wasn't around to do it. "Yeah," he muttered. "Sorry."

"Where's your parents?" Tifa sat forward, rubbing her eyes; Cloud would've apologized, but knew she'd just insist she wasn't sleeping.

"Oh," Zack said to the ceiling, "about a half a mile thataway." He jerked his thumb at the window, indicating the dark-on-darker smear of the forest in the middle distance.

_"Gongaga!?"_ Tifa yelped, and Sephiroth winced. "Sorry. Gongaga? Why didn't you say anything?" She turned to Sephiroth. "General, we've got to stop."

"Tifa..." Sephiroth shook his head, more trying to clear his head than outright denial. "We've no time."

"How long does it take?" Tifa demanded, thumping the back of his seat.

"Whoa, hey." Zack reached back and caught her hand in his palm. "Seph's right, okay? Forget I said anything. I'll just send them a postcard when we get to Midgar."

Cloud thought about his mom opening his death notice again, and sighed. "General?" he said, certain he was asking too much.

"Yes, Cloud."

"Can't we at least... leave a note? Or something? I mean - my mom knows I'm not dead, and Tifa's father knows, but-" He swallowed, suddenly hyper-aware of the loaded words 'mother' and 'father' around Sephiroth, and how to explain without making him feel even worse?

"Is it that important?" Sephiroth asked quietly.

"Yes, sir," Cloud confessed.

Sephiroth took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and turned the buggy southward. Zack reached back and clasped Cloud's knee in a silent thank-you, but Cloud's mind was only on Sephiroth and his lost eyes as they followed him all the way to the Nibelheim reactor to kill the General's mother.

*

"I'm an idiot," Cloud gasped beside him, and Zack had to fight the urge to hug him mid-skirmish.

They'd been _waiting_ for them, of all things - an entire platoon of masked MPs and a handful of Soldiers, armed with spells for paralysis and sleep. They had to have pulled Zack's file the minute things had gone Screwy at the reactor - at least the kind of Screwy they hadn't wanted, with Cloud running up and destroying Jenova while Zack kept General Gloomy busy, anyway. _At least we know now that they want us alive,_ he found himself thinking, nudging Cloud past another sleep spell and into action again. 

"And none of that," he added, turning the motion into a wide swing that cut through their opponent's numbers as easy as breath. "Nobody gets to call my best friend an idiot."

"Even if your best friend leads us straight into an ambush?" Cloud demanded, wielding his own sword (borrowed from a Third with a little too much to prove for his own good) with a skill that would've surprised Zack if he hadn't been training the kid himself. "I'm the one who convinced the General-"

His voice cut off amid a ring of steel-on-steel, and Zack had to duck to avoid another Buster out of nowhere: the few remaining Soldiers must have given up on trying to pacify the Silver General and gone after what looked like an easier target. "Hold that thought, okay, Spike?" he called, and got to work in earnest. For a while nothing passed between them but harsh breath and the occasional glanced affirmation, all their attention demanded by their enemies.

The two Soldiers fell at last, and lack of any further enemies made it safe for Zack to come to Cloud's rescue at last. Only - Cloud was holding his own, teeth gritted with effort as he dodged a devastating blow from his opponent in a blur of speed that looked like it ought to be tinged blue. Torn between concern and pride - _that's my Spike, he can totally take that guy_ \- Zack hesitated until Cloud shouted, "What are you _waiting_ for?"

Well, since he asked. With a mental shrug, Zack hefted his sword and charged in.

The enemy Soldier had no sooner fallen than Cloud picked up the thread of their interrupted conversation. "I'm the one who convinced the General to come here. I put us all in danger." Frustrated, he thrust his sword into the ground and leaned on the pommel, digging a hand through his hair. "I should've known they'd be waiting for us here."

"How would you know?" Zack clasped a hand over the boy's shoulders, pulling him gently close. "You can't be expected to think of everything. That's why we're here. Besides," he added with a grin. "I'm pretty sure we accomplished our mission here. There's no way my folks don't know I'm alive now, what with all the noise we were making."

That earned him a laugh, if a bit of a broken one, but Zack would take what he could get. "The General's going to skin me," Cloud muttered, tucking his face into Zack's shirt.

"Are you kidding?" Zack pulled back and tipped Cloud's chin up to look in his eyes. "After what you've done for him? Cloud, he thinks you walk on water."

Cloud turned pink and tucked his chin down with an honest-to-Alexander peep, and that was so cute that Zack just had to pick him up and snuggle him silly.

*

Until now, ocean voyages had been characterized by a small stateroom shared with only one or two subordinates, food and supplies brought to them upon request, and the occasional visit by the ship's captain to 'see how he was getting on', or something along those lines. He'd never had to stow away in all his life - come to think of it, he'd never been someplace he wasn't supposed to be, full stop.

Curled up in a cramped cargo bay, Zack slumped against one shoulder and Tifa occupying the other, with Cloud wedged in between the two Soldiers with his head pillowed in Sephiroth's lap, Sephiroth admitted to himself that he couldn't think of anyplace he'd rather be. It helped, of course, that he really disliked most of the ship captains he'd met.

Cloud stirred in his lap, and Sephiroth drew his fingers through the boy's hair as he'd seen Zack do. Their last push to Midgar promised to be a grueling one and Cloud needed all the rest he could get. Instead of being soothed back to sleep, though, Cloud shifted closer and opened his eyes, offering a soft, unfocused smile. "You should go back to sleep," Sephiroth murmured to him, threading the fine down of feathers in Cloud's hair through his fingers.

"I'm okay, sir," came the sighed reply, and Cloud turned face-down over Sephiroth's thighs. "Lower, please?"

Warmed, Sephiroth obediently slid his hand lower, over Cloud's shoulders and spine to stroke his thumb over the base of one wing. Cloud crooned, the high call more felt than heard as it vibrated over Sephiroth's leathers, and the tiny wings flexed and spread to their full wingspan - barely reaching past Cloud's shoulders, but that wasn't really the point, was it? Stroking through the feathers made them shiver, the wing curling back on itself in an effort to get closer to his hands, and Cloud hummed again and buried his nose against Sephiroth's thigh, thrumming with pleasure as he relaxed.

Sephiroth realized, at the same time Cloud did, that the thrumming wasn't coming from Cloud alone. Sephiroth himself was purring.

The General tensed and would have curled up, but Cloud reached out to touch his wrist, eyes wide and gently curious and not afraid at all. "It's okay," he whispered, "honest. I won't tell anyone." And didn't that make Sephiroth feel wretched - Cloud himself was an anthro and just learning not to hide it around them, and here he was acting like his own animal-self was something to be ashamed of. Sephiroth tilted his head forward, hair falling over his shoulders to hide his face, and allowed Cloud to stroke the bare skin of his wrist up past his leather glove.

"Which are you," Cloud whispered, "if you don't mind my asking?"

Did he mind...? No. Not from Cloud, of all people. "Snow leopard, mostly," he admitted softly. "Dragon. Wolf. Bits of... other things. You know how I came to be," he added as Cloud's eyes grew wider and wider. "It wasn't only Jenova they changed me with. It's just that I've had a lot of gene therapy and surgery to hide the outward signs." The only anthro feature he had left was his slit-pupiled eyes, which Hojo couldn't fix without ruining his creation's eyesight.

"I didn't know," Cloud murmured. "To have all that inside you... no wonder it all went kablooey."

" 'Kablooey?' " Sephiroth repeated, pained, and Cloud turned red and stammered an apology. "Never mind. I suppose it's accurate enough." He sighed, bent over the boy to stroke his wings again, and Cloud almost immediately relaxed and crooned again. "I had you in the end," he said, feeling a purr starting up in his throat and not minding, "so it's all right."

*

"We're clear, boss!"

It was the slightly sheepish tone in Zack's voice, rather than its presence at the bridge they'd claimed, that made Sephiroth turn. "You," he said, pinning the dark-haired girl behind Zack in a glare, "have trouble following orders."

"That's why I'm not in the military," was Tifa's reply, Zack-like in its fearless cheek. "Besides, someone has to make sure you guys stay out of trouble."

What sort of trouble the teenager meant, Sephiroth couldn't begin to guess, but he supposed it didn't matter. "Indeed," he muttered, turning back to his vigil. Beside him, Cloud shifted where he stood under the weight of his sword but didn't put it down.

The Shinra tower hadn't changed at all in the few days they'd been gone, but all of the former Shinra employees could appreciate the ominous, oppressive loom to the structure that somehow they'd never noticed before. Yet it was Tifa who voiced it for them, bitter even in a near whisper. "They don't even try to hide it, do they?"

"Not really," Zack answered ruefully. "I guess you don't have to when you rule the world. So what are we watching for?"

Sephiroth craned his head back, squinting under the glare of the spotlights. "The elevators. They'll take her to the labs via the glass elevator."

"What if they've already taken her up there?" Tifa demanded.

"They haven't," Sephiroth said, but wouldn't explain why. He focused on the elevators again, sharp vision picking out even the gleam of the buttons inside the elevator car as it moved silently, passengerless, toward the first floor. After a moment even Tifa settled, and the four stood together in silence on the bridge.

Sephiroth hissed, tensing. "There." A flicker of movement in the elevator car, a black-haired gray fox anthro escorting a smaller, slighter red fox anthro in a petal-pink dress. "That must be her." Zack rose, slinging his sword up and over his shoulder, but Sephiroth shook his head. "No. Zack, you and Tifa guard our exit. Trust me," he added at Zack's frustrated look. "Or rather, trust Cloud and me."

Zack looked to Cloud, startled, and saw only endless determination in the younger man's face. "...All right, someone's been holding out on me," he drawled, lips quirking up in a rueful grin. "You know I'm gonna make you both pay for that."

"Never mind that, come on," Tifa demanded, tugging on his bracer. "I've got your back."

"Heh. Thanks, Tifa. Me too."

Sephiroth and Cloud exchanged looks, communicating much the same between them. "Go," Sephiroth ordered, and Cloud shed his heavy sword and leaped, taking the fall from the bridge as easily as a casual step. He took off running, a gold blur, but when Sephiroth cast Haste on him that gold flared blue and all but disappeared.

It was just as Sephiroth had calculated: his gold was fast, but cast Haste on him and he was uncatchable.

_Three, two, one,_ he thought, and tossed a lightning bolt at the elevator. It halted between floors with a shudder, but that wasn't his real goal - ah, there. Tseng had pushed Aeris down to shield her, as Sephiroth had predicted. Which meant it was safe to unleash his second spell: fire. It blew through the glass, shattering it, and in its wake Cloud all but flew into the elevator car, tiny wings thrashing the heated air, scooped the slight fox-girl up and leaped out again. Behind him, Tseng gaped at their disappearing forms, then tilted his head back. His lips moved as if in prayer.

Sephiroth smiled tightly. _Same to you, Tseng. He's a gold, and he's all mine._ "Move," he called, and Zack and Tifa ran out ahead of him, clearing the way to the rendezvous point. Behind them, Cloud shone like a blue and gold beacon in his awareness.

*

The train station was all but deserted when they arrived - typically, for it ferried people to the slums, and who would want to go to the slums at this time of night? Cloud, true to form, had beaten them there, and was hunched over panting while the fox-girl in the pink dress worried over him.

Her ears flickered as they entered the cobbled courtyard and she glanced up. Any trepidation she might have felt at seeing Shinra's Silver General approaching was washed away when she saw the man next to him. "Zack!" she cried, flinging herself over the stones to catch him close, arms and long-furred tail wrapped tight around him.

"Hey, doll," Zack said, voice rough as he embraced her. "Missed you."

Allowing them their privacy, Sephiroth went to Cloud instead, placing a hand on his back. "I brought your sword," he said quietly, leaning the heavy Buster against the youth's shoulder.

"Mmmgh," Cloud groaned, wrapping one hand around the pommel and flopping against Sephiroth's arm. His spike-feathered hair was damp with sweat, his wings trembling with exhaustion as he hid his face in his General's leathers.

"Well done," Sephiroth added, so low none but Cloud would hear. Cloud nodded in acknowledgement, his head rubbing catlike against his chest, and the motion was so familiar that Sephiroth found himself stroking the young man's hair without really knowing why.

"Zack, you pig! You got another girlfriend?"

"What? Whoa, Aeris, she's not my-"

"I'm not his-"

"And she's adorable! I guess you can keep her if I get to-"

_"Aeris!"_

Sephiroth smiled behind his hair, cradling Cloud against his chest. Some things, like instinct, love, and Zack's girlfriend apparently, weren't meant to be understood.


End file.
